“We’re very excited,” Nguyen said Wednesday morning. “My team, they pulled it off. They worked day and night for weeks now, and it’s just so great to see our hard work pan out.”

Nguyen was declared the winner around midnight on election eve with 92.3 percent of precincts reporting. She received 54.95 percent, or 10,831 votes, while Lyons received 45.06 percent, or 8,883 votes, according to the Associated Press.

Showing how much each vote counts, Nguyen won North Andover with just over 50 percent, and by just 18 votes.

Nguyen said she was a little surprised that she won Boxford. When asked what she thinks resonated with voters, she said, “The fact that they know that I’m available and accessible to them.”

“I personally knocked on thousands and thousands of doors in the entire district and had conversations with thousands of people in their living rooms and at their kitchen counters,” she said.

It’s important for people to know they are being heard, she said. That’s the reason she originally decided to run for state rep, she said - she wasn’t able to get in touch with Lyons.

“People want to know that they have someone that they can reach out to and work with to actually get things done,” she said.

The fact that Lyons wouldn’t debate her, Nguyen said, gave her campaign a boost. It was something voters mentioned when she visited with them, she said.

“He won’t give voters the opportunity to hear from both of us,” she said.

So, what is the first thing the new state rep wants to do?

“I want to make sure that people know they can literally turn to their state representative for real issues... that they know that there’s an office available to either work with them directly or be able to direct them to the right resources to get what they need,” she said.

And, she looks forward to building relationships with the House incumbents who won re-election and with the other reps who, like her, are new to the office.

“The face of politics just changed in the Merrimack Valley,” she said.